BY NADJA MARIL
Copyright is held by the author.
THE DEATH rattle. She could feel it gathering in her throat. No, I’m not ready, Isha wanted to tell whomever was in charge. I’m not ready to die. I’m not finished with my life. But who exactly was in charge? The all-knowing entity most people called God? The undefined universe? Herself? The doctors and nurses who might be able to extend her life another day, but at what cost?
Death, what was it like? Only ghosts, if you believed them to exist, could tell you the truth. She’d always heard, when it’s time to let go, you’ll know. You’ll see your entire life flash before your eyes. Her entire life? But how was that possible? With so many moments, each with its variable possibilities, it would be impossible to reveal anyone’s life as a series of images before their eyes that quickly.
Just in the past few years there’d been so many possibilities. What if she’d chosen a different cancer treatment? What if she’d stayed a vegan? What if she’d chosen to live further north, by the sea maybe? What if she’d been living in the city closer to the hospitals, would that have made a difference? But how would you know, which path to choose unless you check out each individual path. How could anyone choose, and which had been the right choices? Which are the right choices?
She’d forbidden them the feeding tube. Forbidden a tracheotomy or any type of ventilator. For a few days she’d worn a transparent oxygen mask, but today it was gone and she felt vulnerable, like a new baby expelled from the womb.
She remembered her mother telling her the story of her birth, how the doctors had put a mirror a foot below the opening between her mother’s thighs, so she could see the head of her baby as it entered the world. A little girl, they’d said.
Lilith, you’ve given birth to a healthy baby girl. A little girl with long dark hair!
I think I’ll name her Isha, her mother had said.
Overwhelmed by the memory, Isha closed her eyes. Bright light. White light. A sense of love. Surrounded by others. She wasn’t alone. This must be it, she thought, that tunnel of light everyone speaks about when they recount near death experiences. I’ll just walk down that tunnel and I’ll be home. The warm light on my skin. A sense of peace.
She felt hands touching her skin. Lifting her up. Slap. Someone was slapping her bottom and it made her cry. Shriek, a little yelp of pain. Faces leaning over her. She was so small and the eyes and faces so large. A soft blanket was being wrapped around her. A sense of comfort.
She wasn’t dying, she was being born.
Ten years earlier, she’d been hiking up a mountain in the Himalayas, before the last earthquake. Thin air and majestic clouds. It had been one of the last big trips she’d taken before her health had begun to fail and she’d given a few coins to an old man begging, his skin marked with lines from years in the sun. “You,” he’d told her, “are a creator.” She hadn’t expected to hear him speak English. She’d looked at him quizzically. He squeezed her hand, “Remember,” he said, “creator.” His words stuck in her head.
A large hand touched the palm of her tiny one. Assertively she squeezed back.
“Newborns,” the doctor was saying, “have a grasping reflex. It’s instinctive. They lose it in about five or six months.”
No, Isha told herself. Her return squeeze was intentional. She was asserting her presence and she would not forget all that had gone before. The beginning of her life was commencing. Her eyes were open and she could see beyond the artificial walls of time. The universe was alive with possibilities. As a creator, possessing the gift of consciousness, she was making contact.
***
Nadja Maril’s prose and poetry has appeared in dozens of publications. Her short stories have been featured in Defunkt Magazine, Pigeon Review, and Rock Salt Journal. A former journalist and magazine editor, Nadja has an MFA in Creative Writing from the Stonecoast Program at the University of Southern Maine and is a contributing editor to Old Scratch Press. Her most recent published items are a poem “Turkey or Potato Pancakes” in the winter issue of Instant Noodles Literary Magazine which you can read or listen to at and an CNF piece in Spry Literary Journal. Follow Nadja and her weekly blog posts.
